


and even if it's dark, at least we'll be together.

by nothingpersonal



Category: Video Blogging & YouTube RPF
Genre: Afterlife, Alternate Universe - Post-Apocalypse, F/F, fluff fluff fluff, this just kinda happened idk man
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-06
Updated: 2014-02-06
Packaged: 2018-01-11 03:23:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,258
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1168073
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nothingpersonal/pseuds/nothingpersonal
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <span class="small">slowly sinking the earth to lay forever. [catburry.]</span>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	and even if it's dark, at least we'll be together.

**Author's Note:**

> title taken from mayday parade's "without the bitter the sweet isn't as sweet."

**i.**

this is how it begins. with no end in sight. everyone is gone now, forgotten and faded (old photos encased in glass). she wanders day in and day out searching for something and she's almost certain that she's half out of her mind by now. here is where time is forever, a cruel kind of eternity (when is it not?) that stretches beyond oblivion and into her heart where there is nothing but a dark, gaping hole. endless, constant and forever; seconds, minutes, hours blurring into days, months, years. 

she keeps count on an old wooden post by her house, scratching crooked tallies into the bark with a delirious passion. sometimes she prays for a way out, but god won't grant her that kind of mercy, and so she lives and carries on, remembering sunsets and sunrises like it was yesterday. there are good days and bad, but most days it's just this, listening for anything but the sound of her own breathing and the wind in her ears. lonely, lonely, lonely, until she isn't lonely anymore.

**ii.**

they meet on a day darker than most, just on the outskirts of town by the side of the road where empty fields stretch on and on. stalks of grass that (should, would, could, if only) grow as tall as a person—except there is nothing but a vast emptiness, weeds and patches of withering green.

the other girl is sitting cross-legged in the middle of the road, staring straight ahead and if meghan didn't remember what people looked like, she would've thought her to be just another part of the scenery. "hello," meghan greets. the word feels odd coming from her lips, stretching her throat and drying her inside out; she can't remember the last time she spoke.

the girl startles, looking up at her with surprise written across her face. "hello?" she echoes back, voice cut with the rasp of disuse.

"i'm meghan," she tells the girl, hand outstretched in a gesture she vaguely remembers. meghan holds her breath for a second, waiting, dread building up within her until she has to remind herself that fear doesn't belong in a place where there are no emotions.

"cat," the girl finally replies, taking her hand (and meghan breathes again).

**iii.**

cat brings her to the city beyond, where meghan's never dared to go, never actually realized existed. she shows her the ragged edges of crumbling towers, lines of cityscape dulled by the weather and forgotten memories. she didn't know there was the whole world out there, and it could be so beautiful, she thinks, if someone loved it.

"i thought i was alone," she says, watching how cat maneuvers easily through the debris and rubble towards her, slipping through cracks and crevices like water.

"i'm here," cat tells her. it sounds almost like a reprimand, but cat squeezes her hand like she'll never let go and meghan's heart skips a beat.

**iv.**

meghan wants to say she remembers. how the sun looked burning across the horizon in the last vestiges of daylight, pink-orange streaks dancing behind the neighbor's house and how they drove her mad with want to touch. the light is dull now, not duller, just dull because she should have forgotten what it was like (before), sunsets and vibrant skies nothing but whispers of rumors now. meghan remembers though, she swears by it, the way it used to be. like when she turned ten and her dad took her camping in the woods, deep into the clearing where sunlight filtered through the branches during the day and the stars twinkled bright and big at night.

with cat, it's almost real again. above them is an endless span of clear blue-grey and meghan imagines clouds in the sky, recalling how she used to lay back on the grass with david, dreaming up portraits of soft bunnies and dragons with fluffy white tails. then cat teaches her how to draw patterns in the sky like it's an empty canvas, and together they trace forgotten constellations, andromeda, cassiopeia, orion…

**v.**

there are places they travel to, faraway places she doesn't know the names of, that look a little more like home each time. it feels a bit like running away, but it's not aimless, it's never aimless anymore. not when she's got someone to talk to—about the weather (same as usual) and to laugh with at how she still can't stop her curls from going all over the place. sometimes they bicker about how it used to be, like what apple pie tasted like and whether or not green peppers were spicy. "no," cat insists, "they're not."

the days are endless and anything is possible. so they spin the proverbial compass and go where it points, further and further away from that dark place they left behind. and meghan doesn't notice how the light returns to day, how it gets so warm it burns sometimes; she doesn't even notice the missing chunks of time because she's not keeping track anymore.

**vi.**

"i love you."

**vii.**

they camp out one night in the middle of some fields and cat shows her how to burn (bright) like a falling star. holds her tight and presses her down into the freshly grown grass, crooning lyrics from old love songs. takes her apart and puts her back together again, whole.

**viii.**

it’s later, when meghan wakes up to the sun in her eyes and her surroundings vivid and bright that she realizes something is wrong. she shakes cat awake, a sense of urgency rising up within her like bile in her throat. above them, their blue-grey canvas sky is crumbling beneath the sun’s weight, and pink-gold beams penetrate the horizon in a swirling mass of imminent calamity. 

“it’s beautiful,” cat murmurs, looking around them at the world reawakened—what they’d created all this time doing nothing but trying to build a world for themselves, and what had ultimately become a world irreconcilable with their happiness. finally, she looks at meghan with bitter resignation in her eyes and says, “we need to go.” 

**ix.**

they eventually return (but it certainly doesn't feel like home). the old wooden post with all its marks and carvings is still there like a constant reminder, and meghan starts counting again.

"let's go for a walk," cat suggests, even though that's all they've been doing as of late. (it feels a bit like running away).

"yes, yeah, okay," meghan replies, always willing. but often now she wishes and wants, that she hadn't met this girl who’d taken her love and given her happiness in return.

they walk a path straight down the middle of the road where they’d first met, watching dust collect at their feet. it used to be lonely here, meghan remembers, when she'd been on her own contemplating eternity. cat stops to lean in for a kiss that leaves meghan breathless, helps her forget (it’s their last).

**x.**

this is how it ends. with yesterday's memories wrapped around her shoulders like a warm blanket, and a name on her lips. the sky is bright and concave, swallowing itself in the all-consuming heat of the sun. she thinks about eternity, and how not too long ago that had seemed too long. to have to live it alone, to watch the days blurring into one, forever and ever. but now there are warm coffee eyes and the sound of a heartbeat that isn't her own. the sun sets, and she thinks, _i don't want this to end_.


End file.
